I attended the NCD course in the year 2015 while perusing my MPH at PGIMER Chandigarh. It was a wonderful opportunity to understand the National and Global perspectives of NCDs. The course was highly interactive with lots of scientific discussions with a mix of social activists, academicians, policy advocates, and policymakers. It also involved lots of extracurricular activities, recreational work like yoga and meditations etc. The special focus remained on the public health approaches for the prevention and control of NCDs. I was able to implement the learning in my state in Himachal Pradesh, India as an Integrated and digital approach for NCDs prevention and control. Following which the state was selected as a best practice for the PM digital innovation award 2017, second-best state award in implementation of NPCDCS in India in best practices meet 2018, ranked first in the NPCDCS implementation evaluation in 2019, invited for presentation in Global digital Health meet Delhi 2019 and presented in the UN assemble sidelines also. I am also attending this course as a resource person at AIIMS Delhi and PGIMER Chandigarh to share the state experience. This course is highly useful to understand and address NCDs at all levels.

I am a nurse educator working in PGIMER, Chandigarh. I attended the first course of public health approaches to NCDs and felt that the level of expertise and knowledge of the presenters was excellent. In addition, I also appreciated their positive attitudes and willingness to explain concepts, I gained a better understanding of the NCDs and the importance of task shifting in managing the growing burden of NCDs. The insights I have gained from the course far exceed any other courses or conferences that I have attended to date. I found the content very useful and practical and it has been incorporated in our training curriculum for the nurses and we have even started a two days course for “ Nurse practitioners for common NCDs” and Nurse-led NCD clinic as a pilot project. I would recommend the course to my colleagues and students because it is really informative, very engaging, very helpful.

I joined the course in 2015 as a student of Masters in Public Health. This was a platform to learn about the public health aspects of NCDs. I got the opportunity to work along with participants across the entire nation and experienced public health professionals. I was able to converge my knowledge of planning for public health interventions for NCD management and prevention. The course surely is a great opportunity for those interested in the field of NCDs.

I feel privileged to have attended this course. The course was very comprehensive, informative and interesting. All the aspects of prevention, surveillance, management strategies, programs and policies of Government related to NCD including mental health were discussed. All the experts put in their best efforts to clarify the basic concepts and enhanced the knowledge regarding NCDs in an elaborative manner. The sessions were interactive and the delegates were given equal opportunity to clarify their doubts and share their experiences. The multisectoral approach for prevention, screening and management of NCDs was well highlighted especially the task shifting and role of nurses at grass-root level. To break the monotony of the sessions many live sessions were added such as yoga, meditation, laughter therapy, physical exercise demonstration. The participants were motivated to incorporate the NCD prevention in their daily life during the early morning and evening session as they were engaged in the events like walkathon, physical exercises etc. NCD prevention was also visible in the meals served to the delegates every day such as adding fresh fruits in meals and serving healthy snacks and this gesture was highly appreciated by the participants. Inspired by this course we have also conducted workshops and courses in our Nursing Institute related to the role of nurse in the prevention and management of NCDs. This course had improved my understanding and insight regarding NCDs and I recommend this course for my other colleagues as well.